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The Assassin
"Join me in the darkness, and I will end this quickly" The Assassin is one of the Chosen introduced in the XCOM 2: War of the Chosen DLC. Description The Assassin is the only female member of the Chosen and the third one created by the Elders, typically being the first encountered Chosen due to her role in introducing the Chosen and their ability to steal soldiers. Unlike the Warlock or the Hunter, the Assassin tends to stick to a more traditional warrior approach- to strike from the shadows and to get up close and personal, rather than support ADVENT units from farther back in the map. Her dialogue suggests that she holds a certain respect for strong opponents- especially noticeable in her final lines. She additionally rarely utilizes her shotgun, and will only use Psionic abilities that summon ADVENT troops or which are otherwise granted by training. Similar to the other chosen, she will insult the players' choice of weaponry when utilizing explosives, and has additional disdain for XCOM swordsmen or, indeed, being attacked in general. A rare exception to this is when she is attacked by the ceremonial axes from the Alien Ruler DLC, specifically the throw axe attack, commenting that "Only a master could craft such a weapon." She will also admit admiration towards XCOM on defeat. Having failed to subdue the Skirmishers, she captures Mox in an attempt to stifle the power of XCOM before it can successfully foil the Elders' plans, acting as another agent in the Elders' plan to turn the Chosen on XCOM and recapture the commander for the ultimate prize of owning Earth. Abilities Parting Silk: The Assassin's signature melee attack can inflict daze, stunning soldiers and allowing them to be captured if they are not revived in time. It is worth noting that this attack never misses or grazes and will bypass 5 armor, so hunkering down or taking a high armor approach will do nothing to prevent the damage from being inflicted. This attack triggers Bending Reed. Bending Reed: Upon using Parting Silk, the Assassin gains an extra action and increased mobility, allowing her to move away to a safer location after attacking. Harbor Wave: The Assassin can create a purple wave and launch it in a straight line, doing no damage but dazing and knocking back any XCOM soldier hit (does 6 damage to enemies that are unable to be Dazed, like The Lost). This attack passes through walls. Vanishing Wind: The Assassin is able to go into stealth at anytime during her turn. Battle scanners are the most reliable way to reveal her concealment, however this may be broken with clever use of grenades, or by flanking her at close range similar to how XCOM may lose stealth. Mountain Mist: A unique grenade that will blind a unit upon impact. This can result in severe tactical limitations when trying to get vision of an enemy, but has no effects on attacks that don't require line of sight to work effectively. Arashi: While it is very rarely used, the Assassin's shotgun is nonetheless as lethal as any of her other attacks and trying to 'bait out' an attack from it is inviting danger. Rapid Fire: '''The Assassin is capable of firing twice in a row at any enemy in sight. Each shot suffers an Aim penalty of -15. 5 turn cooldown. Requires 2 ammo to use. '''Summon: As with all other Chosen, the Assassin may summon ADVENT units to help attack XCOM, typically opening with this ability to keep XCOM busy before using her other skills. Extract Knowledge: As with all other Chosen, the Assassin may extract knowledge from any Dazed XCOM soldier, giving the Assassin knowledge towards their ultimate objective of finding the commander. Afterwards, like the others she will teleport out upon extracting knowledge. Kidnap: As with all other Chosen, the Assassin can capture a Dazed XCOM soldier, teleporting out of the mission with her target. The soldier will remain lost until a covert action is made to rescue the captured soldier. Strengths Strengths are procedurally generated, but there are notable mentions when paired to The Assassin: Shadowstep: Assassin always starts with this as one of her Strengths if the Lost and Abandoned mission is activated. This ensures no counter attack is possible while she rushes in to strike. Planewalker: Having this strength can make any Chosen a nightmare to actually pin down as they'll teleport just like an Avatar does whenever they take damage. Watchful: As The Assassin already has Bending Reed and Vanishing Wind to make cornering her a difficult task, having this Strength active adds to the nightmare. Weaknesses Weaknesses are procedurally generated, but there are notable mentions when paired to The Assassin: Groundling: This encourages soldiers to seek high ground while someone (preferable a Reaper) move around to try break her concealment. Having a grappling hook (Skirmishers or Light Armors) makes it easy to take advantage. Do note that the Assassin, unlike the other Chosen, can freely jump up and down cliffs. Shell-shock: This encourages using grenades to remove her cover, or use incendiary/poison/acid grenades to inflict her with DOTs, which makes her unable to maintain concealment should she use Vanishing Wind. Remote start will be frighteningly effective with this active - whether their adversaries are Reapers or not. Tactics Depending on the random strengths this can be tricky. She prefers to get up close and personal so keeping a distance will force her to approach you. Her first strike is usually melee which is used to daze your forces so keep someone close enough to revive them. She is easily capable of approaching outside your field of view, attack with melee, then move to safe cover if any is around. She also uses a wave ability which can daze all soldiers in a straight line so avoid being too close together if possible. Her preferred method of attack is to strike quickly then move out of sight or behind cover, sometimes using a stealth field to augment this. If you know where she is then use a grenade to break her out of stealth. She is immune to flash bangs however but not burning. Scanning Protocol, or battle scanners can reveal the Assassin with the former not being turn-ending, so a Specialist with this ability would not be a bad idea. Shadowstep prevents reaction shots, which means she can charge into your ranks without worry of being Overwatch trapped. Reapers are possibly the best class to use against her, as they can move quickly and spot her while in Shadow, and their Target Definition ability allows them to keep her spotted even when she reenters stealth after an attack. One idea may be to leave someone as bait to draw her out, then concentrate your fire. Use grenades or abilities that destroy cover to your advantage to set her up with cover, then destroy it. She has a ranged weapon, but almost never uses it. She also has a grenade that can blind soldiers. This limits their field of view, but does no actual damage. During her final battle, she will use all of her abilities relentlessly. She can summon 3 ADVENT units all at once if given the chance. When she first emerges, she will hide somewhere on the map near her spawn point. If you can expose her then her stealth will fail and you can start doing damage. Once all of her HP is gone, she will retreat and the sarcophagus will be vulnerable to damage. A new timer will appear showing how much she has healed and goes up increments dependent on the difficulty each turn. During this time, new enemies will be summoned two at a time. Should she reach 100% healed, she will emerge again, and the barrier around the sarcophagus will be restored. She will need to be defeated again to continue damaging the sarcophagus. Once the sarcophagus is destroyed, she will emerge once more with damage equal to how much she healed that time. At this point, you just need to kill her once more. The presence of other enemies on the battlefield is inconsequential, as once you kill the Assassin one last time, the mission is over. When finally defeated at her sarcophagus, she will drop her sword and shotgun which can be researched allowing soldiers to eventually use these unique weapons. Rewards For Killing The Assassin will reward you with two weapons after permanently killing her. You will have to research them with Tygan before you may use them, as with all Chosen weapons. Katana- The Assassin's Katana is the most powerful melee weapon in the game even though it does not have a secondary ability, or chance to stun like the hunter's axe. It will passively bypass 5 armor and cannot miss its target, unless they have an ability like Untouchable or Parry. Arashi- The Assassin's rarely used shotgun is more powerful than the tier 3 shotgun. It has four built in permanent attachments: Superior magazine, stock, hair trigger and laser sight. Due to its longer barrel compared to other shotguns, the range before its accuracy starts to drop is higher. Trivia * When the first of her siblings is killed, the Elder in the cutscene will note that The Assassin feels emptiness at the loss. This implies a much deeper emotional capacity than the other aliens used by ADVENT, a characteristic shared by the other Chosen. This also implies that the Assassin is the only Chosen to care for the others, as the Hunter and Warlock will be satisfied or made arrogant by her death, respectively. * In the book XCOM FACTIONS there was no mention of the Assassin implying that the book took place before the creation of the Assassin and that she was the third and last chosen created. * Upon killing her, the Assassin will draw the shorter blade of her Katana and stab herself in the belly before cutting across, this resembles Seppuku, a form of suicide typically used by samurai to die an honorable death, this is very interesting since she is more reminiscent of a ninja as opposed to a samurai. Category:Aliens (XCOM 2) Category:DLC (XCOM 2) Category:Enemies (XCOM 2) Category:Enemies (XCOM 2: War of the Chosen)